This invention relates to a hand-operated knitting machine of the type having a single, flat needle bed that includes a plurality of knitting needles tricked in the bed for individual movement therein and, more particularly, to a hand-operated knitting machine which has a carriage that performs loop transfer functions whereby a lace stitch or open work can be knitted on the knitting machine.
A knitting machine carriage with loop transfer functions has been proposed by means of which one or more needle loops on selected knitting needles in a single needle bed are transferred, during directional movement of the carriage on the needle bed, onto those knitting needles in the same needle bed which are in an adjacent, paired relationship to the selected knitting needles. Conventionally, a knitting machine provided with such a loop transfer carriage includes a main knitting carriage that includes a cam mechanism for actuating the knitting needles to knit a desired plain or color designed fabric with one or more yarns fed thereto through a yarn feeder mounted on the knitting carriage. In knitting a lace stitch, the knitting carriage is repetitively operated to knit rows or courses of plain stitches until a preselected row of stitches is reached in which loop transfer is to be effected to form openings or eyelets in the fabric to be knitted, whereupon needle selection is carried out manually or automatically by a suitable means provided with the machine. Thereafter the loop transfer carriage is slidably moved along the bed to effect the desired transfer of the needle loops from the selected needles to their respective paired needles adjacent thereto.
The loop transfer carriage typically has a generally symmetrical construction relative to the transverse center line thereof for its bidirectional operations as in the conventional knitting carriage, and includes, for each direction of operation, a loop transfer device adapted to cooperate with a selected needle and an adjacent, paired needle at their forward end portions to carry out the transfer of a needle loop from the selected transferring needle to the paired receiving needle adjacent thereto. The carriage also includes a cam mechanism which defines first and second loop transfer butt-paths for actuating, respectively, the selected and the unselected remaining needles to bring the selected needles and the adjacent paired needles into operative engagement with the loop transfer device to effect the desired loop transfer operations. Loop transfer carriages of such general construction are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,412,582 and No. 3,861,174; and British Pat. No. 1,362,421. Such knitting machines provided with these loop transfer carriages are not provided with additional special means to assist in effecting loop transfer, such as, for example, a rigid loop expander secured to each knitting needle. While loop expanders of this type are typically employed in conventional industrial double-bed knitting machines that perform loop transfer functions, they are not employed in hand-operated home knitting machines because of their relatively high cost.
For convenient use, the loop transfer carriage is conventionally provided with a suitable means to enable the placement of the carriage at any desired position on the needle bed from above and to enable removal therefrom while the knitting carriage can be placed on the needle bed only at the longitudinal ends of the needle bed. Also, in knitting machines of this type, an extension rail member is removably mounted on each longitudinal end of the needle bed so that the loop transfer carriage can be temporarily mounted on either one of the extension rails in order to prevent the loop transfer carriage from interfering with the movement of the knitting carriage on the needle bed.
A knitting machine carriage has also been proposed which is provided with knitting and loop transfer functions incorporated therein in order to simplify and facilitate the operation of the machine in knitting a lace stitch thereon. The carriage consists of a major part on which all the elements for the ordinary knitting functions are mounted and a pair of minor parts which are removably attached to the opposite longitudinal ends of the major part and correspond substantially to the opposite half-sections of the aforementioned loop transfer carriage. Each minor part carries all the elements that constitute the loop transfer device and the associated loop transfer cam mechanism. When loop transfer is to be effected, needle selection is first carried out manually or by any other suitable means, and then the combined carriage is operated to effect the desired loop transfer and the subsequent knitting of a row of stitches with a supplied yarn.
A knitting machine carriage according to a further proposal is provided with, in addition to the knitting and loop transfer functions, needle selection functions in order to further simplify and facilitate the operation of the machine. The needle selector cams or members are located outside the loop transfer cam mechanism on the carriage, adjacent to the longitudinal outer ends of the carriage. Needle selection, loop transfer, and knitting can be effected in order as desired by a simple operation of the machine, that is, by the directional sliding operation of the carriage on the needle bed.
In designing a carriage for a hand-operated home knitting machine which is manually operated by, in most cases, a housewife or a young woman, special attention must be paid to the weight, size, and especially the length of the carriage taken along the needle bed to provide a carriage that is convenient to use. In the case of an ordinary hand-operated home knitting machine currently on sale, its knitting carriage, which normally includes a pair of needle selector members or cams and a knitting cam mechanism for knitting a two color patterned fabric with two simultaneously supplied yarns is about 30 cm. long and weighs about 2.3 kg, while the overall length of the machine is about 112 cm. Meanwhile, a conventional loop transfer carriage has a length of at least about 22 cm. Accordingly, incorporation of the loop transfer functions of the loop transfer carriage into the knitting carriage would provide the carriage with the total length of up to 52 cm., which is about 173% the length of the original knitting carriage and about one-half the overall length of the knitting machine, although such length can be decreased to a degree by simplification of the knitting cam mechanism such that it is adpated for a plain stitch with a single yarn supply.